2012 – Fall Vacation – Part 8

22Sep

As we near the end of our trip, we will spend Day #8 hiking (climbing) up to Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs, CO. Once parked, I spot a few Fallen Flag Gondola’s that are tough to get photos of but I did manager to get one clear shot.

As you get ready to hike the Hanging Lake Trail there is a Warning Sign. We Saw many on the trail that didn’t read this OR didn’t care!!!

As we walked along the flat section of the trail along the River you get great views of the canyon and places one can also see the Railroad tracks; not a train in sight…

Once you get to the original Hanging Lake Trail Head there is a great sign on the area

Here is another River and Railroad shot I took but still no trains in sight

Once we are deep into the trail, we could see Waterfalls everywhere and this was fall when the water levels are normally low. This is just one of many such places we stop and took photos of…

After a nice long but tough hike we reach Hanging Lake. The last say 0.2 miles is a very steep hike and narrow so mind your footing but the destination is well worth it. We got up to the lake early so there wasn’t too many folks there let but WOW, by the time we left it was packed with people

Found this Hanging Lake Marker on a rock near the lake edge

After getting our shots of the lake we headed farther up the trail to Spouting Rock. It’s not much of a hike by distance but it’s a bit rocky in places so again watch your footing.

By the time we get back down it’s time for Lunch and we find a spot at one of the rest stops in the canyon. I can hear a train coming (finally!) and grabbed the video camera; waiting at this location for the Passing Train. Will share the video later…

Our next stop is the Glenwood Railroad Museum that is in the old depot that is now used by Amtrak. We have been here many a time to only find the museum closed but this time we made sure we would be here when it was open. The front section has an O-Scale/O-Gauge setup and the back section has some nice historic pieces as well as a Large-Scale steam engine

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Our last destination for the day is Aspen, CO. We tried and failed to find the old Depot but we have since learned we were looking in the wrong place. We did however find the Colorado Midland Railroad Bridge (39.201200° N 106.849400°W) that today is used for pedestrian crossing over the creek. It’s right next to today’s highway bridge.